Bernier, François, Travels in the Mogul Empire A.D. 1656-1668

(Westminster, Eng. :  Constable,  1891.)

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DEHLI AND AGRA                          293

way of Ahmed-abad, over the territories of different Rajas.
But whatever may be the discouragements, I do not
believe the Dutch will follow the example of the English,
and abandon their factory at Agra; because they still
dispose of their spices to great advantage, and find it
useful to have confidential persons near the court always
ready to prefer a complaint against any governor, or other
officer, who may have committed an act of injustice or
tyranny in any of the Dutch establishments in Bengale,
or at Patna, Sourate, or Ahmed-abad.

I shall finish this letter with a description of the two
wonderful mausoleums which constitute the chief superi¬
ority of Agra over Delhi. One was erected by Jehan-Guyre
in honour of his father Ekbar; and Chah-Jehan raised the
other to the memory of his wife Tage Mehale, that extra¬
ordinary and celebrated beauty, of whom her husband was
so enamoured that it is said he was constant to her during
life, and at her death was so affected as nearly to follow
her to the grave.

I shall pass Ekbar s monument! without further observa¬
tion, because all its beauties are found in still greater per¬
fection in that of Tage Mehale, which I shall now endeavour
to describe.

On leaving Agra, toward the east, you enter a long,
wide, or paved street, on a gentle ascent, having on one
side a high and long wall, which forms the side of a square
garden, of much greater extent than our Place Royale, and
on the other side a row of new houses with arcades, re¬
sembling those of the principal streets in Dehli, which I
have already described. After walking half the length of
the wall, you find on the right, that is, on the side of the
houses, a large gate, tolerably well made, which is the en¬
trance of a Karvan-Serrah, and on the opposite side from

^ Akbar's tomb at Secundra near Agra was commenced by himself,
and it is believed by competent judges that he borrowed the design
from a Buddhist model. It was finished by his son Jahangir, and is
quite unlike any other tomb built in India either before or since.
  Page 293